How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life PDF
Preview How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life
Advance Acclaim for How to Have a Good Day “There’s a big difference between having a great, productive day and having a bland, ordinary one. Caroline Webb deftly explains how to squeeze the most out of twenty-four hours to create more of the former. Very useful.” —SIR MICHAEL MORITZ, CHAIRMAN OF SEQUOIA CAPITAL “A powerful toolkit to improve both work and well-being. From email and meetings to making the most out of every day, Webb shows us not just how to be more productive but how to be more fulfilled along the way.” —JONAH BERGER, WHARTON PROFESSOR AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF CONTAGIOUS AND INVISIBLE INFLUENCE “Imagine what your life would be like if you could simply ‘choose’ to have a good day. Webb makes a powerful case that we can. Best of all, she shows us how. Webb gets her arms around the vast body of information coming at us from behavioral economics, psychology, and neuroscience, and distills the best of it into the kind of practical advice a wise friend might offer. It’s the book Daniel Kahneman might write if he’d been working in the business world for twenty years. Masterful.” —DOUGLAS STONE AND SHEILA HEEN, COAUTHORS OF THE BESTSELLING DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS AND THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK “This is a brilliantly useful book. Caroline Webb has a quite exceptional range of organisational experience. She uses it to review a vast span of the latest academic ‘thinking about thinking’ in the clearest possible way. And then she applies this wisdom to help us all sort out the frazzle of our own working day. Her approach is utterly straightforward but based in deep insights into how human beings really behave.” — PETER DAY, BBC BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT AND PRESENTER OF IN BUSINESS AND GLOBAL BUSINESS “Years ago I was a rower, and in sports everyone knows you need to pay attention to yourself, your intent, and your mindset to be at your best. This book reminded me of all I learned from those days about the importance of having the right attitude. I found it a great, practical guide to applying these and other helpful psychological insights in business—something we do all too infrequently. Built solidly on the latest research, brought to life with storytelling, it offers many simple ways to boost your performance and give you a better day at work—and if you’re a leader, it will show you how to make sure that your colleagues are in top form, too.” —MATT BRITTIN, PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AND AFRICA; FORMER ROWING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MEDALIST AND BRITISH OLYMPIC TEAM MEMBER “How to Have a Good Day speaks to every area of your workday and shows how making a few critical adjustments to your everyday behavior will leave you amazed by the results. By applying the lessons in Webb’s book, all based on science, you’ll maximize your performance and be more energized than ever.” —MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF TRIGGERS, MOJO, and WHAT GOT YOU HERE WON’T GET YOU THERE “The quest for self-improvement usually takes place on a well-trodden path, with many different gurus offering guidance. But the advice, in addition to being contradictory, often lacks solid foundations. Fortunately, How to Have a Good Day is the breakout exception to this category. The evidence and examples packed inside its pages leave the reader in no doubt that Webb’s advice will make a real difference. Better days lead to better lives, and this extraordinary book will lead to both.” —CHRIS GUILLEBEAU, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE $100 STARTUP AND THE HAPPINESS OF PURSUIT Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life For my mother and my father, who gave me both confidence and cause CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication INTRODUCTION THE SCIENCE ESSENTIALS THE TWO-SYSTEM BRAIN THE DISCOVER-DEFEND AXIS THE MIND-BODY LOOP PRIORITIES PART I: Setting Intentional Direction for Your Day ONE: Choosing Your Filters TWO: Setting Great Goals THREE: Reinforcing Your Intentions PRODUCTIVITY PART II: Making the Hours in the Day Go Further FOUR: Singletasking FIVE: Planning Deliberate Downtime SIX: Overcoming Overload SEVEN: Beating Procrastination RELATIONSHIPS PART III: Making the Most of Every Interaction EIGHT: Building Real Rapport NINE: Resolving Tensions TEN: Bringing the Best Out of Others THINKING PART IV: Being Your Smartest, Wisest, Most Creative Self ELEVEN: Reaching Insight TWELVE: Making Wise Decisions THIRTEEN: Boosting Your Brainpower INFLUENCE PART V: Maximizing the Impact of All You Say and Do FOURTEEN: Getting Through Their Filters FIFTEEN: Making Things Happen SIXTEEN: Conveying Confidence RESILIENCE PART VI: Sailing Through Setbacks and Annoyances SEVENTEEN: Keeping a Cool Head EIGHTEEN: Moving On NINETEEN: Staying Strong ENERGY PART VII: Boosting Your Enthusiasm and Enjoyment TWENTY: Topping Up the Tank TWENTY-ONE: Playing to Your Strengths MAKING IT STICK POSTSCRIPT: APPENDIX A: How to Be Good at Meetings APPENDIX B: How to Be Good at Email APPENDIX C: How to Reinvigorate Your Routine SUGGESTED FURTHER READING GLOSSARY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES INDEX INTRODUCTION How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. —ANNIE DILLARD Thirty years ago, I picked up my first paycheck. It wasn’t a check, in fact—just a small collection of bills and coins in an envelope, my wages for working as a clerk in a local supermarket. On the face of it, it wasn’t a great job. It was poorly paid, and certainly not glamorous. I stacked shelves, mopped floors, and wore a company-issued uniform marked with stains from its previous owner. The manager was gruff and kept an eye on the store from a booth high above the shop floor. And yet, somehow, I liked it. There was camaraderie among the staff, and even the occasional night out together. I took pride in pleasing customers with my speed at the register. I felt useful. Six years later, I landed a far more upscale role as a researcher at an economics institute. I had my own office and a surprisingly large number of recycling bins all to myself. But I soon felt strangely miserable. I couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to my work, and I drifted. I wrote an enormous, earnest report—on economic development in post-Communist Europe—that I’m pretty certain nobody read. I was dealing with what we’d these days call a “first-world problem,” and I knew I was lucky to have the job. But it became hard to summon the energy to turn up to work every day. And at that point in my life, I didn’t know how to turn it around. I treaded water till my contract was up, then quietly moved on. Over the course of my life, I’ve done a lot of different types of work, some of it worse and some of it better than those two early jobs of mine. I’ve been a hotel maid, receptionist, and waitress. I’ve had demanding careers as an economist, a management consultant, and an executive coach. I’ve worked in the private sector and the public sector; I’ve been part of a huge global company and I’ve launched my own tiny start-up. And through it all, I noticed the same thing over
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